Stephen Vincent Benet (1898-1943) was once the most popular
writer of poetry and fiction in the United States, particularly
from 1928 to his untimely death. When the Saturday Evening
Post was the premier weekly in America, Benet was its premier
writer. Benet was a viscerally emotive writer who wore his heart –
and pen – on his sleeve. He achieved both critical esteem and
popular acclaim. His 1937 classic, “The Devil and Daniel Webster”,
may be the most well known short story in American literature, in
which the great lawyer and orator defends a farmer, Jabez Stone,
who had sold his soul to the devil. In 1928 his epic long poem of
the American Civil War, John Brown's Body, was a bestseller
and took the Pulitzer …

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